28 May 2014 (hosing down) 63 km

Wednesday morning, in the shower by 7am. Didn’t want to look outside as we knew what was there.

This rain has been constant now for two days and we have permanent thick cloud cover. We were told we should be grateful as Norfolk (where we were intending to go next) has severe flooding.  See there’s always a silver lining.  Our route today will take us southwest, hopefully in search of less rain….. asking for sunshine I think is out of the question. The waterproofs we bought yesterday, will certainly be in for some use.

It’s been a nice visit and now we cycle to the south coast to meet up with our friend Dools.

Neither of us has been to the Isle of Wight before, but we’ve been told it is quite hilly. Isn’t it strange how when you tell someone where you’re going, when standing next to your bike, the first thing they say is…….. ooh bloody hell, you couldn’t have picked a hillier place to cycle ! Wonder if they’ll still say that when we’re in Holland …..!?

Anyway, breakfast beckons, before oiling the bikes, loading them up and hitting the road.

I’m writing this sitting on a bed in a B&B in Towcester ( for those of you not from England, it is actually pronounced toaster.)

The reason we are booked in here is because it pissed down from the moment we mounted the bikes this morning at 10.45am, until we finally called it quits at 6.45pm. Our gear has stood up to it surprisingly well. The panniers are soaked, but the gear inside isn’t too bad.

Upon arrival in Towcester, we went to the Saracens Arms, a hotel/bar, but they only had one single room.  A couple we asked  told us about the place we are in and even rang ahead for us. Very nice and extremely helpful, especially when you’re stood in the pouring rain with water dripping from everywhere.

Half a mile up the road we found the Counting  House and were welcomed inside by Lynne.

Met Tony her son-in-law who is a bigger nutter than we are. He once held the British long jump record and was nearly selected for the 1992 Olympic games.  Since then he’s  run marathons, assisted in an English channel swim, ridden from Lands End to John O Groats and is about to go to Everest Base Camp.

Julia has just jumped out of the shower, so it’s my turn to get warm. I will leave it to her to fill you in on the earlier part of our day.

Julia now.  Well it may have been raining all day but I still found a lot of positives, surprise, surprise!

For starters, talk about replenished, renewed and revitalised after our three night stay at Ray’s Healing hotel for homeless bikepackers.   Even though it was drizzling outside, it was with a lovely free feeling that we set off with everything we needed strapped to our bikes, waved goodbye to our most hospitable host and headed in the general direction of Oxford. 

I had no pain from my knee while off the bike and I was curious to see if it was, as I suspected, just a matter of having overdone things a bit and would settle down if I didn’t push it too much.  Much to my delight and Pete’s relief it felt fantastic, which was just as well because we encountered quite a few hills today.

While we were at Ray’s we photocopied his map to help us keep to the smaller roads.  This worked really well and we travelled through the beautiful villages of Kelmarsh and Haselbech before coming across a gated road on the way to Cottesbrooke.  Turns out this road ran through the estate of Cottesbrooke Manor – real Downton Abbey stuff this.  A van pulled up to the first gate in front of us and out jumped a female priest who opened the gate to continue driving on the road and she asked us if we could close the gate behind us, which we did.  About a hundred yards further on we all arrived at another gate and repeated the process. Very quaint.  Then we were into the lovely little village of Cottesbrooke and trying to get a glimpse of the manor house.  Unfortunately we didn’t get to see the actual manor as it didn’t open ‘til 2pm and it was only 12.30pm and we weren’t about to hang round in the pouring rain for an hour and a half. 

So we cycled on through Creaton and arrived in Ravensthorpe about 1.30pm where we stopped at the Chequers pub for lunch.  

Lunch stop and the bikes and gear get a rest from the rain too.

They had the perfect little undercover area for us to take our wet weather gear off and leave the bikes while we ate lunch. 

Pete had a Guinness and I had a wine as we planned to hang out here for a couple of hours and dry off.  Although I must say the wet weather gear performed admirably.  Our rain jackets were soaked on the outside and running with condensation on the inside but if there’s one thing I learned from fifteen years as a postie, no raincoat will keep you dry……unless you wear a polarfleece underneath it to repel any moisture that does get through.  Because we only have one pair of shoes, we threw fashion caution out the window and tied plastic bags over our shoes.  This worked a treat.

Drinking in the scenery - note the shoecovers

So we turned on the computer and caught up with messages and posted a couple of blog entries over lunch.  We got talking to a lady called Ginette at the next table and pretty soon the whole pub was joining in the conversation.  Turns out Ginette’s friend’s son is a doctor in New Plymouth named Paul Riley and he lives there with his wife Sarah and their four daughters.  So after a lovely chat, nice meal and yummy coffee, we finally hit the road again at 3.30pm.

There are churches everywhere.  This one seems
to have part missing.

The quaint villages continued with East Haddon and Great and Little Brington which is Princess Diana country.  We passed by Althorp House where she is supposedly buried but we have it on good authority from the locals at Ravensthorpe that she’s not there at all.  They have their suspicions where she is but I’ll have to keep Mum on that one.

As we were cycling along yet another quiet country lane, we could hear this dull roar getting louder and louder – it almost sounded like hail approaching through the bush.  But it was the M1 motorway which was so noisy it was impossible to hear each other talk as we cycled over it.  Boy there’s a lot to be said for the road less travelled.  Yes, they will all get wherever they’re going a lot quicker than us but they miss out on all the flowers, the birds, the rabbits and squirrels and the lovely villages.  Still I’m very glad most of the traffic sticks to the main roads as the roads we are cycling on are not built for traffic in large quantities.

When will this rain stop?  Got another two days of it apparently

We found our way easily through the lovely old part of Flore, then through Stowehill, Bugbrooke, Litchborough and finally to Towcester.  Now we are happily ensconced in our lovely room at the Counting House which more resembles a Chinese laundry now that we have draped all our damp stuff all around it!